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Road to Justice

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10.Hard and filthy are two adjectives Justice fans often use to describe the French electronic music duo’s sound; and in the fandom’s lexicon, they only mean the highest of compliments. My first encounter with Justice didn’t evoke such words, though. Rather it was, Wow-whoa-what is this-oh my Lord! There are layers upon layers of distortion, yes; there are heart-stopping drum beats, yes; but there are also the most appealing rhythm and melodies; and nothing that I would ever associate with noise. Truth is I find their sound akin to classical music. If you gave Let there be light (“Cross”) a violin arrangement, or Canon (“Audio, Video, Disco”) a full orchestra version, they could sit beside your “Bach for Barbecue” favorites.

11. November 18 was duly marked on my calendar. It was the release date of Gaspard Augé’s and Xavier de Rosnay’s third album, “Woman.” In September, Justice released the teaser single, Randy, which got me giddy with excitement. The mellow, melodious and radio-friendly number opens with a quick drum roll, which, if you listen to the entire album, kind of echoes a riff from the preceding track. This sense of continuity despite the variations in tempo and mood of each song has been present in all their albums and you have to appreciate the sonic experience it allows. I guess that’s why they’re great DJs — they know how to keep you on dance floor, if not at least keep your ears intrigued.

12. November 4 on BBC Radio 1 with Annie Mac. Gaspard and Xavier showcased a Party Playlist. They included The Paradise’s In love with you, which was also in their 2007 BBC Essential Mix. The Alan Braxe-produced song features Romuald Louverjon crying, “In love with you” over and over. When it finished, Annie asked the guys, “What is it about the French sound that is so French?” to which Gaspard replied, “I think the main ingredient is something very sad and happy at the same time… something naively romantic.”

13. In the same show, the Parisian duo shared that their biggest influences are pop music and love songs. Annie recalled their DJ set in Ibiza where, following Zane Lowe’s set, Justice played Donna Summer’s Dim all the lights. “It completely changed the mood,” said Annie. “You’re fearless about playing exactly what you want.”

14. If In love with you is a sweet surrender, Love S.O.S (undoubtedly influenced by the former) is pure helplessness. Here, Louverjon lends his vocals as well, and, as with the Alan Braxe track, the lyrics are economical. It begins with a siren, which stays wailing for a good two-and-a-half minutes and then quiets as Louverjon whispers, “L-O-V-E S.O.S. love” repetitively, as if fighting through the flatline; and the siren returns along with a richer musical texture. I have never had quite a physical response to music — and music alone (not the memory it exhumes or within a social context like parties) — until this song.

15. My assumption is, since English is not their native language, they’re more thoughtful about using it. Lyrics can be incomprehensible, outright weird and annoying, and I’ve stopped taking them seriously. I’ve always enjoyed Justice’s vocals-less numbers, but when they decide that someone will sing in a track, the voice is always part of a harmonious whole. And the words, they are simple enough to be meaningful in a way that mantras are; as in: “Use imagination as a destination”(Pleasure), “Music and lines, rhythm and melodies / so many nights, so many memories” (Stop), and “When you know you’ve arrived and it’s time / don’t shoot low, aim it high” (Randy).

16. Unlike its predecessors, “Cross” and “Audio, Video, Disco,” “Woman” starts off not with a pounding epic-scaled song (like Genesis and Horsepower) but with the dreamy, futuristic Safe and Sound. The space disco vibe is prominent in the album, especially with Pleasure, Stop, and Fire. Those craving grandiosity will find it in the seven-minute Chorus, which also has an element of gospel in it. And Alakazam!, as listeners have noted, picks up where Phantom Pt. 2 left off — the title may have suggested it, but that tune is like a magic spell’s beginning, middle, and aftermath.

17. Gaspard and Xavier (and granted many other artists) avoid talking about the science behind their art. I try to but fall short. So I’ll resort to more gushing instead. Justice crafted three studio albums in a span of ten years. Slow by popular standards. I don’t mind. I could live for a decade with “Woman.”

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Opera superstar Tito Merelli pauses midway through opening the bedroom door to eavesdrop on a hushed, rushed conversation between his wife, Maria and another man (who, unbeknownst to him, is Carlo Nucci — newest opera darling and boyfriend of his daughter, Mimi). Tito tarries till he confirms his great fear: Maria is having an affair.

This is not true, however. What Tito has witnessed are passionate gestures, words and escape stratagems taken out of their proper context and into his own unassailable betrayal narrative.

Ken Ludwig enjoys this game of hide-and-seek in A comedy of tenors, currently staged by Repertory Philippines under the direction of Miguel Faustmann. A Paris concert featuring the world's leading tenors — Merelli, Nucci, and Jussi Björling — is about to start in three hours. As farce would have it, Björling has to withdraw from the performance due to his mother’s sudden death, forcing producer Henry Saunders to hire his assistant-slash-son-in-law, Max (whom he has …

Lauren Gunderson is a rather demanding playwright. To put it another way, her imagination demands an equally creative team of artists to translate her decades-spanning, locations-shifting story — that centers on astronomer, Henrietta Leavitt — from the page onto the stage.

Silent sky moves between 1900 to 1920, and back and forth the Harvard Observatory, Wisconsin, Cambridge, an ocean liner on the Atlantic, and a star field. Bridging the gaps in time and space are Gunderson's cinematic directions: "Margaret fades away;" "Peter and the Harvard Observatory are swept away from her as the Leavitt home takes its place;" "The room falls away as they run off;" "Time is passing as the sky fills up in swatches." A curious heroine and compelling script aside, how the set will transition from scene to scene is something to look forward to in any staging of this drama.

Joy Virata takes on the mantle of re-building Silent sky's dream-like world as she…

Sometimes I think about dance. Not that thing we poor souls do at the club, but that which is conceived by a choreographer and realized by a dancer. How the art form seems to evade preservation and discovery.

Stumbling upon a great modern ballet piece is not as easy as stumbling upon, say, a great novel by an obscure author or great music from a band in the ‘70s. Sure there are licensed recordings of performances available in stores — limited as they may be — and there’s YouTube and other video-streaming services to scour (if you want something recorded by naughty, rule-bending audiences), but my impression is that dance doesn’t bother as much with reproduction and distribution the way other popular art forms do.

From where I am, there’s no better person to ask whether or not this is an actual problem of the industry than National Artist for Dance, Alice Reyes. “It’s not a problem, it’s a fact. It’s something we have to live with,” a fired up Reyes told me during an open rehearsal of …

That was a long first act. When Berger (Michael Schulze) introduced himself—his version of a handshake: asking a kind lady to hold the trousers he just took off—I thought we were off to a good start. Schulze's frenetic ways were captivating, and his openness, infectious. There's a hippie, I said to myself.

Excitement, however, dissolved into dizzying confusion. Tribe leader, Claude (Markki Stroem) entered with faux—not to mention annoying but maybe that was the point—Manchester accent, and Sheila (Caisa Borromeo) convinced everyone that she believes in love. Tried to. More tribe members walked onto and away from center-stage, dropping a thought or two about life, sex, war, race, pills, grass, hair... They rambled on and on until the curtains closed for intermission.

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Repertory Philippines culminates its 50th anniversary celebrations with 1960's musical, Hair, directed by Chris Millado. For someone who hasn't seen any of the show's previous incarnations, Hair appe…

I was already having my chicken empanada heated when I saw at the bottom shelf a familiar figure in an unfamiliar, but expected price (guess what, from Php40 to Php65.)

My candid self almost asked the barista, "Did you bring it back, because I kept asking for it?")

What stopped me from asking was, I didn't need an answer. But more practically, I did not want to embarrass the barista--and my self.

But I always need that. That feeling, I mean, that every event in the now, I have a hand on. Because it's as if all has been a machination of chance. And while most of the time I believe in what they say about you engineering your chances, the universe has a way of making you see your self so little. So little you squint your eyes trying to find your self, trying to find your self, the universe disappears.

But Nalick has a distinct kind of magnetism, marked by something sexy and poetic and messy at the same time. Her voice is pained but never vulnerable, powerful when quiet yet cracks open an entire world when climbing high notes. She is one of the few lyricists whose words make me pay attention.

When Aura hit Soundcloud earlier, I got excited right away. I just knew that the album would be good. I trusted in the artist, and that time and age would do the trick.

I never understood remixes. My literary background had me believing in ultimate, untouchable forms. Any rework or editing is a step toward that final draft. Not to say that I don't enjoy a good remix when I hear one. But now that I think about it, I am fascinated by this open and pliant nature of the song—something counter to literature, in particular the tyrannical art of poetry.

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Erol Alkan is making me think about it. Sometime in 2012, six years since its release, I don't feel like dancin' found its way to my player, looped for weeks. Five more years passed till I discovered Alkan's Carnival of light rework. What I heard was something subdued but exciting. How he stretched a pleasant moment, toyed with it, built on it. And when I thought it would simply go on for ever—which I didn't mind—he brought the best bit of lyrics out, leaving me with nostalgic aftertaste.

This month he shared a playlist containing songs in his "Reworks Volume 1" compilation. W…

Thing is, I've learned how to do that—and have been doing that—since I landed my first job. The freedom that money and singlehood afford, I spend on gourmandizing. That quote, by the way, comes from the Japanese mini-series, Samurai gourmet, where newly retired Takeshi Kasumi embarks on a new adventure: figuring out what to do with all the free time in his hands.

"Why am I in a hurry to go home? I don't have to go to work tomorrow," is an example of Kasumi's many internal dialogues; and the focus on introspection while keeping a lighthearted tone is the show's unique charm. Its opening credits go, "This story is about an ordinary 60-year-old man"—and they mean it.

Other everyday struggles he faces are: mustering the courage to speak up to a rude store owner, asking loud diners on the next table to be quiet, and being himself, that is, eating pasta with chopsticks—and pairi…

'Absolute attention is prayer.'
Over lunch I was reading Alan Bradley's 'A red herring without mustard' and the main character, Flavia, said something similar:Thinking and prayer are much the same thing… Prayer goes up and thought comes down—or so it seems. As far as I can tell, that’s the only difference.My own thoughts switched between the food, the book, and the window. It was a nice meal of chicken roulade I was having while outside the skies were drab for two o’clock. It didn't take long before rain fell.

Back to the book, now dessert. A few bites and pages after, my head turned again to the window. The rain stopped, but I squinted at the grounds, checking for traces of water.

There appeared to be none and before I could even spot a mirage, my view gradually shone yellow.

It was the first time nature made me smile the way a human being does—slowly, unexpectedly.

There is a certain comfort found in cyberspace. It has something to do with the anonymity and privacy that serves the dweller.

It is so much easier to disclose facts, or on the other hand, fictionalize matters when your face is not seen and your identity, concealed.

The human eye--the human glance, squint, hard look and looking away, serve a thousand words. One kind of look can say it all, that you may just want to run and hide, turn your back. A look can make you small, even invisible if the beholder wishes to. The cyberspace does not have this sensual trigger.

And so the cyberspace is really a melancholy place. I've been trading emails, engaging actively in stimulating fora, and while it keeps me in touch with other human beings and souls, I still feel a cut in my heart, for there is nothing more pleasurable than being with a person upfront--the sense and sensuality of company. Not just hearing voice and breath, but feeling the weight of a gasp. Nothing beats holding hands…